School-Based Social Networks of Black West Indian Girls in New York City High Schools (Poster 9)

• In Event: AERA Promising Scholarship in Education Research: Dissertation Fellows and Their Research

Abstract

While research on Black girls’ schooling in the United States has increased, less is known about how Black girls interact with people and the physical space of schools to resist the impact of violence. My study aims to (1) attend to the influence of ethnicity in Black girls’ racialized and gendered socialization within schools; (2) understand the role of peer groups in Black girls’ schooling; and (3) explore how the relationship between Black girls’ spatial strategies and their schools’ organizational routines differs across two high schools. This 10-month ethnography centers the experiences of 20 Black West Indian girls across two small New York City public high schools located in the same building. Using social network analysis, in this paper I explore Black West Indian girls support networks in their schools to understand the places, peers, and adults that they rely on to navigate their school experiences. My study positions Black girls’ articulations of their lived experiences as critical insight for education stakeholders seeking to improve the inequitable racialized and gendered school experiences of marginalized youth.

Author

• Khrysta A. Evans, University of Wisconsin - Madison